' 'All this,'
replied she, 'have I heard: but tell me, have you a Sultan who
ruleth over you and is tyrannical in his rule and under whose
hand you are, who, if one of you commit a fault, taketh his
goods and undoth him and who, when he will, turneth you out of
your houses and uprooteth you, stock and branch?' 'Indeed, that
may be,' answered the man. 'Then, by Allah,' rejoined she,
'these your delicious viands and dainty life and pleasant
estate, with tyranny and oppression, are but a corroding
poison, in comparison wherewith, our food and fashion, with
freedom and safety, are a healthful medicine. Hast thou not
heard that the best of all boons, after the true Faith, are
health and security?'
Now these[FN#204] [quoth he who tells the tale] may be by the
just rule of the Sultan, the Vicar of God in His earth, and the
goodness of his policy. The Sultan of times past needed but
little awfulness, for that, when the people saw him, they
feared him; but the Sultan of these days hath need of the most
accomplished policy and the utmost majesty, for that men are
not as men of time past and this our age is one of folk
depraved and greatly calamitous, noted for folly and hardness
of heart and inclined to hatred and enmity.
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